Creative people have better-connected brains

From www.eurekalert.com

Highly creative people have significantly more nerve connections between the right and left hemispheres

Duke University

DURHAM, N.C. -- Seemingly countless self-help books and seminars tell you to tap into the right side of your brain to stimulate creativity. But forget the "right-brain" myth -- a new study suggests it's how well the two brain hemispheres communicate that sets highly creative people apart.

For the study, statisticians David Dunson of Duke University and Daniele Durante of the University of Padova analyzed the network of white matter connections among 68 separate brain regions in healthy college-age volunteers.

The brain's white matter lies underneath the outer grey matter. It is composed of bundles of wires, or axons, which connect billions of neurons and carry electrical signals between them.

A team led by neuroscientist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico collected the data using an MRI technique called diffusion tensor imaging, which allows researchers to peer through the skull of a living person and trace the paths of all the axons by following the movement of water along them. Computers then comb through each of the 1-gigabyte scans and convert them to three-dimensional maps -- wiring diagrams of the brain.